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| 5 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
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| 11 | ->''"More inexplicable is Creator/AndyRichter's work as a limousine driver with sinister connections to music piracy rackets. He is given an accent, from where I could not guess, although I could guess why: At a story conference, the filmmakers looked in despair at his pointless character and said, 'What the hell, maybe we should give him an accent.'"'' |
| 12 | -->-- '''Creator/RogerEbert''' on ''Film/NewYorkMinute'' |
| 13 | |
| 14 | When a character has an accent that cannot be explained by the setting. It's often wildly dissonant with the accents of other characters who have the same background. Similar to NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent, except that the actor doesn't have the accent either -- there's simply no good reason for it. It ''can'' be explained as being for humor or to take advantage of a cultural stereotype for characterisation, but sometimes it happens for no good reason at all. If an accent is because a character is from a real life place, but uses an accent for a different real life place that is a MisplacedAccent. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | This is very common in audiobooks because narrators who are faced with creating dozens of unique character voices will often use regional accents to differentiate characters even when they're supposed to be from the same area. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | OohMeAccentsSlipping is not this trope because normally the characters speak with setting-appropriate accents but lapses. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | See also WhatTheHellIsThatAccent (when the resulting accent is confusing), VotOcksent (when they deny they have an accent despite having a thick one) and UnintelligibleAccent (when their accent is too thick to understand). |
| 21 | |
| 22 | ---- |
| 23 | !!Examples |
| 24 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 25 | |
| 26 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 27 | * PlayedForLaughs in one ''Advertising/CNCity'' bumper, where [[WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory Dexter]], who has a heavy accent of unidentifiable origin while his family is American, is implied to talk like he does in part because he has a speech impediment. |
| 28 | %%* In ''Advertising/CompareTheMeerkat'', the meerkats have Russian accents. |
| 29 | * One Advertising/{{Geico}} ad featured the thickly-accented Gecko character speaking about Americans in a vague way that made it unclear if he considered himself one or not. A character asks "Where are you even from?" and the ad... [[NoEnding abruptly ends]]. |
| 30 | [[/folder]] |
| 31 | |
| 32 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 33 | * In the Mexican dub of the first ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa'' anime series, the character Munemasa Katagiri speaks with a [[TrrrillingRrrs ridiculous faux-German accent]] that no other character is shown using. Even more jarring considering that he's ''Japanese'' while actual German chars speak normally. |
| 34 | * In the ''Anime/CodeGeass'' English dub, while no other Britannian has such an accent, Lloyd and to a lesser extent Schneizel speak with sort of [[FakeBrit campy British accents]]. Likely, it just might be the [[Creator/LiamOBrien voice]] [[Creator/TroyBaker actors]] [[LargeHam hamming it up]]. It should be noted, even though Britannia originated from Britain, Britannia's territory is mostly in America at the beginning of the series (the British isles having been lost to France long ago, before Britannia became a superpower, with the royal family relocating to to America), not in Europe/E.U. |
| 35 | * ''Dear Shitamachi Princess'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this when [[OccidentalOtaku Maria]] puts a [[PaperThinDisguise magazine of her mother over her face]] and talks with what ''reads'' (as this is a manga) as a rough Brooklyn/gangster accent that only confuses her Japanese friends as 1. She's from a fictional Scandinavian country and 2. when said mother ''does'' make an appearance, there's no accent when she's presumably speaking her native language. |
| 36 | * In the English dub of ''Literature/DemonCityShinjuku'' despite it taking place in Japan several characters have different accents, Sayaka speaks in a British accent, the cafe waitress has a Southern accent, Chibi aka Chippy in the dub has a Spanish accent, and Mephisto has a Romanian accent, the dub mainly used British actors and Sayaka’s was using her natural accent. |
| 37 | * Despite everybody else speaking regular English without any noticeable accent, the English dub of ''Anime/FantasticChildren'' has Tohma (and to a lesser extent, his mother and father) speak in some strange unidentifiable accent. |
| 38 | * ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'': Kagura is an AnimeChineseGirl who often ends her sentences with "aru", a VerbalTic used in JapaneseMedia as a [[StereotypesOfChinesePeople stereotype]] to convey a Chinese accent. Despite her not actually being Chinese, it initially seems justified by the fact that the Yato have elements of a FantasyCounterpartCulture of China. But then it turns out that neither her father, her brother, other Yato, or any other [[HumanAliens Amanto]] ever seen in the series for that matter, have trouble speaking [[AliensSpeakingEnglish perfect Japanese]] whithout any trace of an accent. Gintama [[NoFourthWall being]] what [[BetterThanABareBulb it is]], this is sometimes lampshaded or discussed for a joke. |
| 39 | * The Creator/FourKidsEntertainment of ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'' infamously gave Meta Knight a Zorro-esque Spanish accent, and King Dedede a Southern accent. They live on an alien planet where those countries don't exist. |
| 40 | * Hayate Yagami, introduced in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' comes from Uminari City like Nanoha. Hayate speaks in a Kansai dialect, but nobody else from the city does. |
| 41 | ** Even more mysteriously is Sieglinde Jeremiah from ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid''. She also speaks in Kansai dialect, but she doesn't even come from ''Earth'', she's from Mid-Childa. Although, it is said that Earth's culture has influenced Mid-Childan culture, but it is not known to which extent. Also, Sieglinde lives in the same city as Vivio and the rest, since she has to qualify in that city's tournament. Nobody from the city talks in Kansai dialect except Hayate. |
| 42 | --> '''Harry Tribecca:''' "I wonder whether Sieg and Commander Yagami come from the same place." |
| 43 | * Rau [=LeCreuset=] from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' speaks with a British accent (at least in the English dub), despite nobody else from ZAFT having one. He may be deliberately affecting one since he's [[spoiler:living under an assumed name because he doesn't want anybody to know he's a clone]]. This is especially odd given [[AllThereInTheManual that sourcebooks say he's ethnically French-Canadian]]. |
| 44 | * The Creator/FourKidsEntertainment dub of ''Manga/OnePiece'' gave Sanji a Brooklyn accent and Nico Robin a Southern accent. The former doesn't really have much of a reason why, but the latter could be because her outfit included a ten-gallon hat at the time of her introduction. Quite a bit of the supporting characters also had strange, unexplained accents. |
| 45 | * In the ''Anime/PrincessMinerva'' OVA the traveling saleswoman and tournament fighter Lachloa Valvis is given a Brooklyn accent in the English dub. |
| 46 | * ''Anime/SailorMoon'': |
| 47 | ** Molly in the English dub has an utterly inexplicable and quite thick Bronx accent. The original character, Naru, has no accent at all relative to the rest of the characters. |
| 48 | ** At least one OneShotCharacter actually got an accent out of nowhere -- although neither of the characters from the ''Sailor V'' animation episode had an accent in the original, one of them was made to sound like a Southern belle in the Creator/DiC English dub. |
| 49 | * ''Anime/YuGiOh'': The Creator/FourKidsEntertainment dub specifically: |
| 50 | ** Joey Wheeler is a Japanese teenager with a thick Brooklyn accent. |
| 51 | ** Bakura was given a British accent to reflect [[FormalCharactersUseKeigo his polite speech patterns in the original Japanese version]], which unfortunately made a lot of fans mistakenly think he ''was'' British. |
| 52 | ** During the Virtual World arc, Kaiba duels his former right-hand man, Lector, who is in disguise, and instantly recognizes him because of his southern accent. Lector is AmbiguouslyBrown and is supposed to be from Japan like the other characters. |
| 53 | * ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'': Yusei, Jack, and Crow all grew up together in the Satellite district and spent much of their lives there. In the Creator/FourKidsEntertainment dub, Jack and only Jack inexplicably has an Australian accent. |
| 54 | * The English dub of ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' tends to give some characters accents that seem rather out of place: |
| 55 | ** Jin was given an Irish accent in the English dub [[AccentAdaptation in an attempt to mirror]] his Tohoku accent in the Japanese version. They even compounded on this by making Jin a MotorMouth who speeds through sentences so it all comes out in a streak of barely-understood Irish phrases. |
| 56 | ** Chuu is given an Australian accent, which unlike Jin doesn't really reflect how he speaks in Japanese. This is probably a reference to ''Film/MadMax'' -- he looks like he wandered in from either there or ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', after all. |
| 57 | ** Roto, the demon that tried to have Kurama's mother killed, had a Hungarian, Creator/PeterLorre style accent in the dub; likely done to emphasize his menacing personality. |
| 58 | [[/folder]] |
| 59 | |
| 60 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 61 | * In ''Comicbook/JaneFosterValkyrie'', Jane's horse, Mr Horse (he doesn't have a name, because he's not one o' your posh ponies from That Asgard) talks in a strong Yorkshire dialect. He's from Vanaheim, and nobody else from Vanaheim talks like that. |
| 62 | [[/folder]] |
| 63 | %% |
| 64 | %%[[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 65 | %%* The crocs from ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine''. |
| 66 | %%[[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 69 | * The Courier in ''WebVideo/CouriersMindRiseOfNewVegas'' has a vaguely British-Chinese accent, despite living in [[AfterTheEnd the post nuclear war]] Mojave Desert. |
| 70 | * Luna from ''WebVideo/FriendshipIsWitchcraft'' is the only character with her accent. Her accent is lampshaded in her introduction when somepony asks "Why does she have an accent?" |
| 71 | * Lampshaded in ''Fanfic/InvisibleSun''. |
| 72 | -->''"Did you learn all this in your home country?" she asked, charmed by his intelligence and strange mode of dress.\ |
| 73 | "Um . . . yes?" He failed to see the point of the question and couldn't quite grasp what she was driving at. "I was born here in the United States, Ms. Keane."\ |
| 74 | She blinked. "But . . . I thought you were Russian."\ |
| 75 | "You did? Why?"\ |
| 76 | "Your accent!"\ |
| 77 | "I have one?" was his wide-eyed response. "Really?"'' |
| 78 | * ''Blog/SwearySheRa'''s version of Hordak has a thick Geordie accent for some reason. His subordinates have a hard time understanding him. |
| 79 | * In the ''Animaniacs'' fan-series entitled ''WebAnimation/ZanyToTheMax'': |
| 80 | ** Jot Warner, a cousin of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, has a Mexican accent. Her accent was inspired by WesternAnimation/SpeedyGonzales, but that's not an InUniverse explanation. |
| 81 | ** Subverted with Jakko Zarner's Finnish accent. He can actually speak Finnish, explaining his accent. He was originally going to sound like a higher-pitched Wakko. |
| 82 | ** His sister, Zot, sounds like Dot with Wakko's accent. |
| 83 | ** Sikko has a Liverpudlian accent like Wakko's. Because of her "{{Anime|sque}}niesque" appearance, you'd expect her to have a Japanese accent. |
| 84 | [[/folder]] |
| 85 | |
| 86 | [[folder:Film -- Animation]] |
| 87 | * English dubs of the animated adaptations of various ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' comics almost never bother to give any characters French accents, but they at least try to be consistent about it so one can reasonably HandWave it as TranslationConvention. The exception is ''Asterix In Britain'', where they ''do'' bother to make Asterix and Obelix sound French to distinguish them from the English secondary characters, but the Romans all sound generically American -- except for Caesar, who presumably got a British accent to make him sound posh -- and the token black guy from that pirate crew who keep getting beaten up by our heroes has an accent that's probably meant to be Ebonics. |
| 88 | * Among the HornyVikings that make up the human cast of ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon'', all the teenager have SEV American accents while the adults have Scottish accents. |
| 89 | * All of the bugs in ''Literature/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' have different accents, despite being from the same (English) garden. The Grasshopper at one point states this explicitly, when the Centipede dishonestly brags that he's from Brooklyn (which ''would'' explain his accent). |
| 90 | * In ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'', Dr. Jumba has a rather thick Russian accent and its characteristic lack of articles. In addition it being unusual due to him being a space alien, he is also at odds with the rest of the extraterrestrials in the movie, as they all have accents found in the Anglosphere. However, later movies have Dr. Hamsterviel, who has an equally unexplained French accent. |
| 91 | * Scar and Zazu from ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' both have British accents when everyone else has American accents, despite being set in Africa. Scar's own family doesn't share his accent. He's got a cultured British accent, while nearly everyone else, including his brother, sounds American. It seems to be an EvilBrit thing -- he's not [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment British because he's British]], he's British because he's ''evil''. |
| 92 | * Despite ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'' being set in Italy, a couple characters have different accents; the Coachman speaks with a Cockney accent, Pinocchio, Blue Fairy, and Jiminy Cricket have American accents, and Lampwick speaks in a Brooklyn accent. Geppetto was voiced by an Austrian actor, and [[AudienceColoringAdaptation the popularity of the Disney version]] means many other versions have the Italian toymaker sounding inexplicably German. |
| 93 | * The Sheriff of Nottingham from ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' has a Southern US accent, as do both his deputies. And Friar Tuck, Little John, and Alan-A-Dale all sound like they came straight out of a Western film, contrasting the English setting and accents by the rest of the characters. Maybe they were going for something like CulturalTranslation, assigning characters accents that fit the nearest analogue to their archetype in US pop culture? |
| 94 | * Nicodemus and Auntie Shrew from ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH'' have British accents, despite all the other characters having American accents. |
| 95 | * ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'': |
| 96 | ** Shrek the Scottish Ogre. According to [[Creator/MikeMyers Mike Myers]] he was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally]] Canadian. |
| 97 | ** Also, Myth/RobinHood has a French accent. |
| 98 | ** Fiona has an American accent whilst her parents and Lord Farquaad have English accents. |
| 99 | ** Puss in Boots seems to be Spanish. |
| 100 | * In ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'', Princess Aurora and Lord Duke both have British accents, despite the film being assumed to be set in Medieval France during the 14th Century. [[note]]The real life SouthernBelle Mary Costa toning down her accent to sound more English to voice Aurora. As for Duke (the herald), Maryland actor Hans Conried dropped his normal and gruff voice to speak in a high pitched and younger tone to voice Duke. Similarly, Maleficent's pet raven Diablo was originally going to speak in a stereotypical Brooklyn accent. However, Diablo is a silent character in the film's final cut, but his sound effects were likely provided by Candy Candido.[[/note]] However, the rest of the characters have inaccurate American or Mid Atlantic accents including Mistress Flora, Mistress Fauna and Mistress Merryweather, Prince Phillip, King Stefan, King Hubert, Queen Leah, Maleficent, and the Goons. |
| 101 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheSwanPrincess'', although it is implied to be set in Medieval England, several characters speak in different accents; Jean Bob has a French accent (meaning he came all the way from France, according to Odette’s Book of Wonderful Friends -- Jean Bob), Derek, Odette, Alise, and Speed have American accents, and Sir Knuckles has a stereotypical Brooklyn accent while most of the characters have British accents, including Sir Rothbart, Lord Rogers, Lieutenant Puffin (Scottish or Irish accent), Bromley, Queen Uberta, Sir Clavius, Sir Chamberlain, and King William. |
| 102 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone'', despite being set in Medieval England, Arthur has an American accent while all the other characters have British accents, including Merlin, Madam Mim, Archimedes, Sir Ector, Sir Kay, Sir Pellinore, the Scullery Maid, and Sir Black Bart. |
| 103 | * ''{{WesternAnimation/Tarzan}}'' learns to speak English from Jane, her father and Clayton -- all of whom are British. Yet he speaks English with an American accent. Further muddying this issue is that early in the film before he knows English, he imitates Jane and Clayton's voices -- English accents and all. |
| 104 | [[/folder]] |
| 105 | |
| 106 | [[folder:Film -- Live-Action]] |
| 107 | !!Actors: |
| 108 | * Over the course of his career Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger has been zig-zagging this trope like crazy, since the guy's well known for his thick Austrian accent but usually plays American citizens. Some films like ''Film/{{Commando}}'' will explicitly mention that Arnold's character is an immigrant from a German-speaking country, but others leave it unaddressed. |
| 109 | ** Arnold's most famous role in ''Film/TheTerminator'' never quite explained why the T-800 model had such a conspicuous way of speaking given he's meant to infiltrate and kill targets. James Cameron's idea was that the accent signified how the T-800 was attempting to copy human speech patterns, but not perfectly, ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' makes a joke about the origin of the Terminator's accent. |
| 110 | ** Lampshaded in ''Film/LastActionHero'' the main character attempts to poke plotholes about Arnold's character in the FilmWithinAFilm by pointing out his Austrian accent in spite of playing a native Californian. He simply replies "Eggsint? Vhat eggsint?" |
| 111 | ** In ''Film/{{Predator}}'', Dutch is an elite American special forces officer with a thick Austrian accent. It's not clear if his nickname is supposed to be a reference to his character's origin, whether Dutch or Deutsch. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | !!Individual films: |
| 114 | * King Leonidas of ''[[Film/ThreeHundred 300]]'' has a strong Scottish accent. It's long been a convention amongst English translators of Ancient Greek plays to translate the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Spartans]] as sounding Scottish ([[ViolentGlaswegian similar stereotypes]]), but ''only and specifically Leonidas'' sounds like this. [[Film/ThreeHundredRiseOfAnEmpire The sequel]] gets even weirder, because ''its'' main character Themistocles sounds ''Australian''. Everyone else is pure [[TheQueensLatin Queen's Ancient Greek]]. |
| 115 | * ''Film/BlackChristmas1974'' has Creator/OliviaHussey (British-Argentinian) playing a student in an American college. It's not once commented on why there's a British girl there, explaining whether she's an American citizen or just doing a semester there. |
| 116 | * In Korean film ''Film/{{Burning|2018}}'', Ben's Korean sounds completely different than the other characters', even though he apparently has the same background as them. This is because Creator/StevenYeun is not a native Korean speaker (he left Korea with his family when he was five and grew up in the United States), but it also works in the movie, giving Ben--who comes off as a sociopath and is implied to be a SerialKiller--an alien, off-putting vibe. |
| 117 | * ''{{Film/Gaslight}}'' is set in Victorian London, and features American actor Joseph Cotton playing a Scotland Yard detective while keeping his accent. You could HandWave it by saying he's Canadian. |
| 118 | * In ''Literature/TheGirlOnTheTrain'', Creator/EmilyBlunt doesn't hide her British accent, and it's never explained why she's the only British character in the film. The only reference to it at all is when she's talking to Dr. Abdic (played by Creator/EdgarRamirez), and comments on his accent. He replies "Well, ''you'' have an accent." Blunt says it was a reference to the original novel, which was written by a British author and took place in London, and she also said it gave her character a stronger sense of isolation. |
| 119 | * ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'': Despite being played by the very Germanic Gert Frobe, when the character is introduced Felix Leiter says he's "British, but he doesn't sound like it." Of course Frobe was dubbed by another actor but he is still given a German accent. The character wasn't even British in Fleming's novel (he was Latvian) so why this was put into the film is a mystery (no other details about his background are mentioned). Possibly Leiter meant he is a ''naturalised'' British citizen (a detail that is mentioned in the novel), but it isn't clear. |
| 120 | * In ''Film/{{Highlander}}'', Connor [=MacLeod=] was born a Scotsman, but Christopher Lambert has a Belgian French accent and practically had to recite his lines phonetically because he was so unfamiliar with English. He affects a bit of a Scottish accent as best he can in the flashback sequences, but his muddled accent actually makes a bit of sense in the modern day. When told that his accent is "funny" and asked where he's from, he replies, "Lots of places." Over the course of the centuries, it stands to reason that his accent is a mish-mash. |
| 121 | * Bofur in ''Film/TheHobbit'' trilogy has an Irish accent, unlike anyone else in the films other than the characters portrayed by his actor James Nesbitt's daughters. |
| 122 | * ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'' |
| 123 | ** Jack Ryan's wife speaks her few lines with an English accent. Both the character and the actress are American. (And when Gates [=McFadden=] was replaced with Anne Archer in later installments of the series, the English accent was dropped.) |
| 124 | ** Captain Raimus' Scottish accent, despite him being Lithuanian. At first one can dismiss it as TranslationConvention as he's speaking with other soviets and the English is presumably for the convenience of the audience and they are actually speaking Russian, but later he interacts in English with still the thick Scottish accent Sean Connery is known for. |
| 125 | * Dutch actor Creator/RutgerHauer inexplicably adopts an American accent for his role in ''Film/{{Ladyhawke}}'' and everyone else (except for actual American Matthew Broderick) sounds British, despite the setting being [[TheMiddleAges Medieval France]]. |
| 126 | * Given a HandWave in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''. Pippin speaks with a Scottish accent because Billy Boyd is Scottish -- and they found his comic timing was better using his own voice than an English one. They justified it by saying his last name Took was supposed to be pronounced the same way a Scot would say it and so his home was Middle Earth's [[FantasyCounterpartCulture counterpart to Scotland]]. |
| 127 | * The 2015 version of ''Film/Macbeth2015'' has Lady Macbeth as a French woman, played by Marion Cotillard. There have however been a few French queen consorts in Scottish history, making this plausible. |
| 128 | * ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'': It's anyone's guess why Lord Humongous, the post-apocalyptic warlord in the wastelands of Australia, has a thick Swedish accent. |
| 129 | * ''Film/MaryReilly'' is set in Victorian London, and [[JekyllAndHyde Dr Henry Jekyll]] is the only character speaking with an American accent; the other Americans in the cast speak in either English (Creator/GlennClose) or Irish (Creator/JuliaRoberts) accents. Creator/JohnMalkovich also portrays Edward Hyde with the same accent, which none of the characters comment on (although one notes the resemblance and assumes Hyde is an illegitimate son). |
| 130 | * ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'': While most of the cast speak in TheQueensLatin, the Judean People's Front inexplicably speak in a silly affected accent that is [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent supposed to be]] German. Their leader was originally going to be a parody of Adolf Hitler, but all the scenes setting this up were cut, leaving only the German accent. |
| 131 | * Almost every single character in ''Film/{{Nemesis}}'', where even the American actors playing Americans put on inexplicable foreign accents. |
| 132 | * Areola in ''Film/NotAnotherTeenMovie.'' Her accent is ''explained,'' in that she's a foreign exchange student. The inexplicable part is that it changes from scene to scene, often crossing oceans and continents. |
| 133 | * Subverted in ''{{Film/Pollyanna 1960}}''. The original book had Pollyanna be American, but Creator/HayleyMills (who is British) was simply [[AbilityOverAppearance ruled the best actress for the part]]. So even though she has an American aunt, she speaks with the actress's English accent. But subtle lines of dialogue say that her father was a minister in the British West Indies -- implying her father was British (she's also seen teaching Nancy the English folk song "Early One Morning"). Hayley Mills also uses some American pronunciations in her voice, suggesting Pollyanna's speech was affected by growing up with an English and American parent. |
| 134 | * ''Film/TheRecovered'': Beverly Sloane speaks with actress Tina Krause's natural New York City accent, but everyone in her home town where she grew up speaks with a Wisconsin accent, including the actress who plays Beverly as a child in flashbacks. You might rationalize this by thinking that Beverly now lives in New York and changed her accent since leaving, but even her current boyfriend in New York has a Wisconsin accent. |
| 135 | * ''Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera'': Pavi Largo speaks with some sort of Italian accent, despite having the same upbringing as his (American-accented) siblings. His father Rotti has a light Italian accent, in contrast to the thick, forced accent Pavi has. Rotti's accent is Paul Sorvino's natural speaking voice, while Pavi's was Nivek Ogre making fun of Sorvino. Supplementary materials claim that Pavi adopted his ridiculous accent to get over a severe childhood speech impediment, but as this is ''never'' alluded to in the movie itself, it still arguably counts as this trope. |
| 136 | * ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' has a lot of this. Frank and Riff Raff both speak with very different British accents (Frank with a very plummy, drawling, London accent and Riff has a strained, nasal RP accent). Magenta speaks with a (possibly intentionally) terrible Transylvanian accent and Dr. Scott speaks with a German accent right from the get-go, when his nationality is supposed to be a secret. |
| 137 | * ''Film/TheRoom2003''. Johnny speaks with a very unusual accent that the movie never explains. In one scene he tells a story about when he first moved to San Francisco (where the movie is set), but he doesn't say where from, and his ambiguous wording ("it was an out-of-state bank") suggests he's still supposed to be from somewhere in the United States. This is apparently Tommy Wiseau's actual accent. He claims to be Cajun, but most people don't believe him and no one is able to place the accent for certain. Wiseau later confirmed he's from Poland but his accent -- in English, at least -- seems to be heavily influenced by his time living in France. |
| 138 | * ''{{Film/Sayonara}}'': Marlon Brando chose to give his character a southern accent against the director's wishes, who thought a West Point educated general's son wouldn't speak that way. |
| 139 | * It's not clear if it was intentional or not, but one scene in ''Film/TheSevenYearItch'' has "The Girl" (played by California-born Creator/MarilynMonroe) shift very briefly into what sounds like a stereotypical New York accent ("pahhty" instead of "party"), even though her character is said to be from Denver, Colorado. This can't even be explained as her trying to fit in with the native New York characters, since the actors playing them ''[[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent don't]]'' [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent speak in New York accents]]. |
| 140 | * In ''Film/SorryWrongNumber'', Ann Richards' character Sally Hunt-Lord is supposedly from a working class town in Illinois, but speaks with a 'Received Pronunciation' English accent. As Richards was born in Australia to an American father and a New Zealander mother, it's not her native accent either. It ''might'' be an affectation she adopted when she went to college--which would fit her character--but is never explained. |
| 141 | * ''Film/TheSpiderwickChronicles'' has a slightly confusing example where the elderly Lucinda speaks with an English accent (she's played by British actress Joan Plowright). Her child self is American however. While she could have lost her accent over the years, she's stated to have never left her house except to go to her retirement home -- so how would she have picked up an English accent? [[spoiler:Further muddying things is when she's restored to her child self at the end, and speaks with the American accent]]. |
| 142 | * ''Film/StreetFighter'': Guile sports the American flag both on his uniform and, as it is in [[Franchise/StreetFighter the games]], tattooed on each bicep. This character detail was not revised in light of the minor detail that he's played by Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme, who is making absolutely no effort to disguise his distinctive Belgian accent. |
| 143 | * ''Film/Thirst1979'': Although the film is set in Australia, all of Dr. Gauss' lines are delivered in actor Creator/HenrySilva's regular New York accent, something which is never explained or even commented on at any point in the film. |
| 144 | * ''Film/ThreeBillboardsOutsideEbbingMissouri'' features the minor character of Chief Willoughby's wife Anne, played by Australian actress Creator/AbbieCornish for once not putting on a different accent. It's never explained how an Australian woman came to live in a small American town that's portrayed as very conservative. |
| 145 | * ''Film/Titanic1997'': Archibald Gracie IV is portrayed with an accent of the British Received Pronunciation variety. Although he was from a wealthy family in Alabama and had studied in the Northeastern USA, he doesn't sound American or even [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent Transatlantic]]. |
| 146 | * ''Film/TransformersRiseOfTheBeasts:'' Wheeljack speaks with a Mexican accent despite; A: Being in Peru, and B: Being a giant alien robot. He gets a bit short with Noah Diaz when the human assumes this means he can even speak Spanish at all. |
| 147 | * ''Film/WereAllGoingToTheWorldsFair'': The main character, Casey, has an indefinable accent that occasionally sounds somewhat Scottish and other times more New York. She's a teenage girl living in a Northeastern American town, and the small fragment of speech we get from her father sounds American. It makes her seem even more alienated. The actress was born in Texas. |
| 148 | * ''Film/Werewolf1996''. Although Yuri (who is implicitly roughly Slavic in national origin) has an accent that causes comparisons to the Frito Bandito, Natalie's is... less easy to pin down. "It was a wurrwilf!" |
| 149 | * ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'': In the scenes before Dorothy gets transported to Oz, the farmhands (played by the same actors as the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion) all speak with either Boston or New York accents despite supposedly being in Kansas. |
| 150 | * In ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'', Creator/AmberHeard's Mera speaks with a British accent, despite speaking with an American accent in the original [[Film/JusticeLeague2017 theatrical cut]] and in ''Film/{{Aquaman|2018}}''. |
| 151 | [[/folder]] |
| 152 | |
| 153 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 154 | * Stolas in ''Literature/TheCrewOfTheCopperColoredCupids'' speaks in a "crisp Scottish accent", despite being established as hailing from Ancient Greece. |
| 155 | * Subverted in ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'': Boris (who works with the protagonist in a British intelligence agency) has a thick Russian accent for no apparent reason. Later on, it's explained that it's the result of magical brain damage. |
| 156 | * ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' tends to use [[PlanetOfHats species-specific]] [[FunetikAksent Funetik Aksents]], but occasionally gives one character an accent that doesn't fit. Most of the vermin speak either "generic thug" or TalkLikeAPirate, with the smarter ones and each book's BigBad often speaking Standard English, but for some reason Dingeye and Thura in ''Salamandastron'' were recognisably [[UsefulNotes/TheMidlands Brummie]], and Wraith speaks with TrrrillingRrrs. Most of the hares come under the heading of UpperClassTwit, but Rockjaw Grang had a very broad OopNorth accent; justified in his case as he originally came from [[GrimUpNorth the Northlands]], which are usually depicted as a Scotland analogue but likely have a nearby Yorkshire analogue. |
| 157 | * Different species of TalkingAnimal in the ''Literature/{{Spellsinger}}'' novels also have different accents, and they're often PlayedForLaughs (e.g. Brooklynese tough-talk from a robin). |
| 158 | * In three of the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' audiobooks (''Starlight'', ''Twilight'', and ''Sunset''), the (American) actress gives medicine cats a British accent, possibly due to SmartPeopleSpeakTheQueensEnglish, despite all the other characters and the narration being read with an American accent. Medicine cats are just normal cats -- born and lived with their Clanmates all their lives -- and just chose a different job, so where did the accent come from? Are they born with it and for some reason all cats with this accent take the medicine cat's job? Or does healing cats suddenly give you a different accent somehow? |
| 159 | * ''Literature/WutheringHeights'' gives Joseph a FunetikAksent, which is odd since every other character is from Yorkshire too. And while it would make sense that the upper class characters would speak more refined, other servant characters such as Nelly don't speak the same way as Joseph. Most adaptations tend to drop this. |
| 160 | * At least one collection of Ancient Spartan sayings and quotes (the place that gave us Laconic wit) give them (phonetic) Scottish accents. |
| 161 | [[/folder]] |
| 162 | |
| 163 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 164 | * In a commentary for a season 5 episode of ''Series/TwentyFour'', Julian Sands admits he didn't bother attempting an authentic accent for the Slavic Vladimir Bierko, imagining him to have spent a substantial amount of time in England. There's no in-universe indication that this is the case. |
| 165 | * Connor in ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has an American accent despite being raised from infancy by Holtz, an Englishman, in a demon dimension where they were the only two human beings. The only possible explanation is that the demons of Quor'toth have American accents. |
| 166 | * Both Minbari ambassador Delenn and Centauri ambassador Londo of ''Series/BabylonFive'' have vaguely central/eastern European accents, which stand out all the more because their respective assistants ''don't'', and it's a crapshoot as to whether any other individuals of their races will display an accent either. In Delenn's case it's Creator/MiraFurlan's actual Croatian accent. As for Londo Mollari, Peter Jurasik invented his accent, and William Forward imitated it as Lord Refa; there is a suggestion that Londo and Refa have similar accents because they are ''older'' and thus less used to speaking English than their underlings. |
| 167 | * Whenever baby Wyatt on ''[[Series/Charmed1998 Charmed]]'' is turned evil by something (yes, this has happened more than once), his future adult self inexplicably becomes an EvilBrit despite being an American raised in San Francisco with two American parents, and speaking with an American accent when he's good. This can't even be blamed on the actor, because Creator/WesRamsey is American. |
| 168 | * ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'': |
| 169 | ** Sabrina's Aunt Hilda has a British accent, even though her sister Aunt Zelda has an American accent and it's heavily implied throughout the show that Hilda also grew up in Greendale. What's weirder is that Zelda is played by [[FakeAmerican an Australian actress]], so it's not as though they couldn't make them match. |
| 170 | ** Prudence also has an American accent, despite being raised by Father Blackwood -- who has an English one -- and her mother has been dead since she was a baby. Her actress seemed to pick up on this, as after her first couple of appearances, she adopts a mid-Atlantic sounding accent that suggests she picked up some of Blackwood's speech patterns while also those of the other American girls she was raised around. |
| 171 | * ''Film/Cinderella1997'' isn't really set anywhere in particular, and most of the cast speak with their natural American accents. Creator/JasonAlexander, however, who plays the royal majordomo Lionel, speaks with a nonspecific, vaguely-European accent of his own devising. |
| 172 | * On ''Series/{{Coupling}}'', Londoner Jeff has a Welsh accent -- his mother, when she's later introduced, doesn't. Notable for not being scripted that way, the actor just felt like doing one. Many in the cast didn't even know he wasn't Welsh until a few episodes in. |
| 173 | * ''Series/Danger5'' is about a MultinationalTeam of Allied spies during UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo, playing heavily on NationalStereotypes. However, one of the agents, Pierre, isn't actually given a specific homeland, but just represents a mishmash of Southern European stereotypes and accents. Adding to the confusion is that the team are constantly running into people from Pierre's past in places from France to North Africa to Burma, all of whom seem to know him by different names. It's worth noting that Pierre's actor, Aldo Mignone, is Italian. When [[TheOtherDarrin the role was recast]], the gag was retired. |
| 174 | * In the English dub of ''Series/Dark2017'', Regina Tiedemann is dubbed with a German accent, while the rest of the cast are American. Including child Regina Tiedemann in the 1980s flashback scenes. Yes, she apparently grew into speaking English as a second language. In the original German, nobody speaks with any discernible dialect, to [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield keep the location of the town of Winden]] ambiguous. |
| 175 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E3MawdrynUndead Mawdryn Undead]]", Tegan and Nyssa are regressed to childhood by chronal energy. Child-Tegan has a British accent instead of an Australian one. |
| 176 | * In-universe use: On ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'' Kate wants to ditch her date, so she asks the guys to act like her crazy family so that her date would ditch her. Oswald comes in with a thick Ozarks accent claiming to be her brother and her baby's daddy. The date calls him on it: "If you're her brother why do you have an accent and she doesn't?" "Because... I was born on vacation!" |
| 177 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 178 | ** Creator/AidanGillen is Irish and initially put on an English accent to play Littlefinger for the first couple of seasons. For some reason, he stopped doing this and just spoke in his natural accent. You could argue he kept the accent up as a way to fool people, but then again at this point in the story he'd have no reason to stop faking an accent if that were the case. Also, he's of Braavosi descent by way of the Riverlands, and neither place is shown to have Irish accents. |
| 179 | ** Tyrion (Creator/PeterDinklage) also falls into this, being one of the few non-British actors in the main cast, and thus has an accent that sounds different to the other cast members. |
| 180 | ** Tormund (Creator/KristoferHivju) speaks with an odd accent that is noticeably different from the other wildling characters', yet is nothing like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8-Pp9OyuL4 the actor's natural Norwegian accent]]. |
| 181 | ** Same goes for Sandor "The Hound" Clegane: Creator/RoryMcCann [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkBJz87aTKA has a thick Scottish accent in interviews]], yet the Hound speaks with a different, vaguely Northern English accent that doesn't match that of either his brother "The Mountain" or any other character from the Westerlands. |
| 182 | * ''Series/HillStreetBlues'': Andy Renko speaks with a distinct Southern twang, unlike everyone else in the cast, but "...was born in New Jersey, never been west of Chicago in my life." |
| 183 | * In an episode of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', [[Creator/AlysonHannigan Lily]] is the subject of an "intervention" by her friends (who are pretty much addicted to doing interventions) for constantly affecting a Cockney accent over the course of several weeks. |
| 184 | * Alexander Fitzhugh of ''Series/LandOfTheGiants'' has an English surname, but speaks with an Austrian accent thanks to his UsefulNotes/{{Vienna}}-born actor, Kurt Kasznar. Since Fitzhugh is a ConMan, fans have speculated that he's using an assumed name. However, that is never confirmed in-universe. |
| 185 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/TheLibrarians2007''. Neil has a British accent (which is actor Bob Franklin's natural accent). However, one episode reveals that he was born in Australia and grew up in the local area. This leads to one of the characters asking Neil's adoptive mother (who has an Australian accent) why he has a British accent. She says she doesn't know, but that he's always had it.[[note]]Adding to the humour of the situation is that Franklin was born in London and raised in Wales, which makes his accent unmistakably British but otherwise hard to pin down.[[/note]] |
| 186 | * In ''Series/MakoMermaidsAnH2OAdventure'', Mimi is portrayed to have an Anglo-North-American accent, possibly as a result of being portrayed by a Canadian actress. This gives the impression that such is the accent of the Northern Pod mermaids, and that [[spoiler:Zac's Australian accent is due to having been raised by foster parents in Australia who were Australian]]. However, toward the end of the series [[spoiler:when they are reunited with their mother, Nerissa, it turns out that she has an Australian accent like most of the cast, rather than the Anglo-North-American accent that we were previously led to see as being characteristic of the Northern Pod]]. |
| 187 | * Maj. Winchester on ''Series/{{MASH}}'' has a strong British accent, despite Bostonian origins. It's an (inaccurate) attempt at a Boston Brahmin accent, to go along with the character's upper-class background. |
| 188 | * Detective Andy Sipowicz of ''Series/NYPDBlue'' is a born and bred New Yorker...who bears the obvious Midwest accent that his actor, an Illinois native, comes with. It's never brought up in show. |
| 189 | * ''Series/OnceUponATime'': |
| 190 | ** A really confusing example with Geppetto. He has an Italian accent, presumably acknowledging that [[Literature/{{Pinocchio}} his literary source]] came from Italy. However in a flashback to his childhood, both he and his parents speak with American accents. His son Pinocchio also speaks with an American accent. |
| 191 | ** The show's take on Camelot is of a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Medieval England. Yet Percival, Lancelot and Kay all have American accents. Guinevere sounding Spanish is also never explained, as she's shown to have grown up in the same village as Arthur. |
| 192 | ** Rumplestiltskin's father Malcolm is a really weird example; as an adult before his transformation into Peter Pan, Malcolm, like Rumple, has a Scottish accent. But Peter Pan has an English accent, and is implied to be created from Malcolm's actual childhood, if not completely identical to it...so did Neverland give him the English accent, or did he become Scottish and then English again? |
| 193 | ** Really, this is the baseline for all of the fantasy world characters, as the cast is a diverse make-up of American, British, Australian, and other actors, most of whom go with NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent. While some might be a nod to the origins of whatever story they're using, most aren't; Belle, for example, is played by an Australian actress and has an Australian accent, despite being from the same land as the American-accented Snow and Charming and the original fairy tale being French. No in-universe example is given for this, or even for why people from a fantasy world would even ''have'' accents that correspond to real-world countries. |
| 194 | * ''Series/OnceUponATimeInWonderland'': The Red Queen (and sometime Wicked Stepsister) Anastasia has an OopNorth accent, which seems at odds with her mother's RP dialect. |
| 195 | * Johnson in ''Series/PeepShow'', although ostensibly British, speaks with a funny kind of transatlantic accent that sometimes blends in a bit of West Indies (he's black). Though this is probably because he is a total phoney and a poser. Paterson Joseph is slightly inconsistent with the voice over the series but this might even be intentional (since it's most likely an affectation) |
| 196 | * ''Series/RedDwarf'' |
| 197 | ** Cat, played by an English actor, speaks with an American accent, was born in space. The logic behind the Cat race having American accents is that they learned English by watching the film and TV programs stored on the ship -- presumably, the majority of the media is American. |
| 198 | ** Chris Barrie uses a fairly ambiguous accent to play Ace Rimmer as opposed to the (more similar to Barrie's real accent) normal Rimmer accent. He speaks with a blend of English RP (which suits his status as stiff upper lip officer) and Trans-Atlantic, which is generally used to sound "cool", but has the side-effect of sounding slightly bogus, cheesy and affected. It's essentially perfect for the character of Ace. |
| 199 | * Crystal on ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' speaks with a Southern accent despite having been born and raised in Lanford, Illinois.[[note]]Most of the rest of the cast do speak with strong Midwestern accents, in many cases their natural accents.[[/note]] (Natalie West, who plays Crystal, is from North Dakota, making this a character choice.) This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the show itself when Roseanne and Jackie ask Crystal why she speaks with a Southern accent and (obviously having heard this explanation before) they chorus her response: "My father's from Arkansas!" |
| 200 | * ''Series/ScreamQueens2015'' has Earl Grey -- who is a Manchester boy -- in the fraternity the Dickie Dollar Scholars. It's never explained how a British guy ended up at an American college or why he joined the fraternity. |
| 201 | * In ''Series/SeriouslyWeird'', Steve, who is supposedly a Greek god, has a Scottish accent. But, then again, he is the god of chaos. |
| 202 | * ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. |
| 203 | ** Deanna Troi's accent, given that Creator/MarinaSirtis invented the accent as reflecting her Betazoid upbringing, but other actors playing Betazoids don't bother trying to imitate it, leaving it rather inexplicable. A couple of episodes do attempt to address it; in one, it's stated that she picked it up from her human father (who later appears in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E6DarkPage "Dark Page"]], and does not have the accent), and in another, it's blamed on her nanny. |
| 204 | ** The French Jean-Luc Picard has an undisguised British accent. Reportedly, Creator/PatrickStewart made a game effort at a French accent in early screen tests, but never got it to sound convincing or consistent enough, and gave it up as a bad job. Things get even more inexplicable when we meet Picard's brother Robert, who (despite being a Frenchman who's lived all of his life in France), also has a British accent... except that it's a different regional accent than Picard's, even though it's explicitly stated the two grew up in the same area where Robert still lives. ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' eventually makes an attempt at a partial explanation by mentioning that the Picard family fled their vineyard in France because of World War II and moved to England for several generations before returning. |
| 205 | * In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode [[Recap/SupernaturalS02E21AllHellBreaksLoosePartOne "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One" (S02, Ep21)]], when Dean asks Sam to bring him some pie, he slips into a Southern accent as he says "pi-ah". In this case, it's because the actor playing Dean is from Texas, and has explained that [[OohMeAccentsSlipping his accent tends to slip]] as filming drags on. Dean and Sam are from Kansas, which is also in the South but tends to be less heavily accented. |
| 206 | * In ''Series/{{Timeless}}'', Goran Višnjić speaks with his distinctive Croatian accent, despite Flynn Garcia presumably being an American of Hispanic and Irish ancestry- in fact, in one episode, giving his name establishes his bona fides when speaking with the Spanish/Mexican General Santa Anna. This is sometimes given a LampshadeHanging in the show itself, including one episode where a Union general is suspicious of him and cites his unplaceable accent, and another where when claiming the two are [[PinkertonDetective Pinkertons]], Rufus identifies Flynn as "[[ImMrFuturePopCultureReference Hans]] [[Film/DieHard Gruber]]", to Flynn's annoyance. |
| 207 | * Often {{invoked}} in ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'' when someone attempts a particular accent badly and another player will mock it by implying this trope is going on, e.g. "If we're all from France than how come you speak like a Russian?" Once during a ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire''-esque game, Ryan spontaneously switches to a southern accent for no good reason before trying to pass it off as using the accent so that the person he's talking to doesn't know where he's really from. |
| 208 | [[/folder]] |
| 209 | |
| 210 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 211 | * The [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent European/West Indian/Indian/Middle Eastern/North African accent]] Music/{{Eminem}} used for Slim Shady on ''Relapse'' and some ''Encore''/late 2000s material doesn't change that Slim's a Detroit resident with Missouri roots from a white-trash background. [[ShiftingVoiceOfMadness It may just intend to signal his insanity]]. Eminem stated in interviews at the time that he was "bored of the English language" and was trying to bend the words to make them sound as weird as possible, which he could only do with accents. |
| 212 | [[/folder]] |
| 213 | |
| 214 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 215 | * Molly from ''Radio/FibberMcGeeAndMolly'' has an Irish accent for some reason. |
| 216 | [[/folder]] |
| 217 | |
| 218 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 219 | * Tituba in ''Theatre/TheCrucible'' speaks with broken English and is usually given an African-sounding accent. Her real life counterpart was in the English colony since she was a child, so her English should be as good as anyone else's. |
| 220 | [[/folder]] |
| 221 | |
| 222 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 223 | * ''VideoGame/AkaSeka'': Michinaga speaks in Kansai dialect even though the setting does not ''have'' a Kansai region. Ditto Sakamoto and his Tosa accent, while in this case it's slightly more justifiable considering the historical figure he's based on. |
| 224 | * In the English version of the ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} and Obelix: XXL'' games, Asterix speaks with a French accent. This makes some sort of sense as he is from what eventually became France, but it fails to qualify as JustAStupidAccent as none of the other Gauls have one. The other Gauls speak in various UsefulNotes/BritishAccents -- Vitalstatistix is Scouse, Obelix is a bit Cockney, and so on. Getafix and Julius Caesar both speak RP despite one being a Roman and the other being a Gaul. All of the Gauls mentioned so far were born and raised in the same village of about 200 people. While making no sense, it serves as nice shorthand for their character archetypes -- Asterix is a revolutionary and a French patriotic hero, Obelix is rowdy, blunt and quirky, Getafix is learned, Caesar is Shakespearean and very classy, and Vitalstatistix is tough but a bit shiftless, all of which are stereotypes a British person would ascribe to their accents. |
| 225 | * ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': Almost everyone has some flavor of British accent, from Gale's [[IAmVeryBritish prim and proper RP]] to Karlach's OopNorth lilt. However, the ArcVillain of the second act, Ketheric Thorm, has a conspicuous American accent (provided by Creator/JKSimmons) even though his own daughter Isobel has a British accent like almost everyone else. |
| 226 | * ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' mostly has accents from the British Isles (mostly English, with some Irish), but the Plain Doll has a Slavic accent that almost nobody else in Yharnam has. It's eventually revealed that she got it from the human she was designed after, Lady Maria...whose accent is ''also'' unexplained, because she's from Cainhurst, whose few survivors appear to be just as English as Yharnamites (the two places aren't even particularly far apart). |
| 227 | * In ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', Zane Flynt speaks with an Irish accent despite the fact that his brothers Baron and Captain Flynt in the previous games have American accents. |
| 228 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''. Every. Single. Character. Has some random accent. Australian, French, Russian, German, anything you can think of. And it doesn't make sense, considering that it's not like you travel to different countries. And quite a few characters that have completely different accents live in the same town. Hum. At least Kid's is probably affected. After all, [[spoiler:Schala didn't talk like that in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''.]] |
| 229 | * Frog speaks YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe in the SNES version of ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. Not only does no one else speak like that, flashbacks even show ''his own human self'' speaking in normal [[EternalEnglish modern]] English! The DS version of the game, having a new translation, fixes this: Frog speaks somewhat old-timey, but so does everyone else in his era. |
| 230 | * ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'': Multiple characters have different accents, even though the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States where air travel is literally physically impossible and it's very unlikely that sea travel for long distances happens either. [[ArtificialHuman Deadman's]] Mexican accent is relatively understandable, but [[ActionGirl Fragile's]] French, [[TheSmartGuy Heartman's]] British and the Chiral Artist's Japanes are decidedly less so. In case of the Chiral Artist it's revealed that her parents were immigrants from Japan that arrived in America shortly before the Stranding started and she was later adopted by an American woman after her parents died, so this might explain her case. The common theory in the fandom is that Fragile and Heartman also had immigrant parents and grew up in secluded shelters, only being able to learn English from said parents, whose English was already accented. |
| 231 | * ''VideoGame/Dota2'' has a lot of accents in a world where the places they originate from don't exist. For example, Pudge (a corpulent humanoid that devours human flesh), Bristleback (an ill-tempered porcupine-man who constantly gets into barfights), and Slark (a diminutive fish-man with a penchant for stabbing) all have [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents Cockney accents]]. |
| 232 | * Bodahn and Sandal Feddic, recurring characters of the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series, speak with heavy Cockney accents rather than the American accents that dwarves generally have in the setting. This is despite the fact that Bodhan himself is from the dwarven city of Orzammar. This may be a failed attempt to fake the local human accents; Bodhan especially is using an exaggerated Fereldan accent. The [[WatsonianVersusDoylist practical explanation]] is that Bodahn shares a voice actor with the other two characters in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' (barteners in Lothering and Denerim) who can provide rumors, so they didn't have to record the same lines twice. The other two are humans, so they need the British accent. |
| 233 | * In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', Brynjolf and Delvin of the ThievesGuild speak with a Scottish and a Cockney accent respectively and are the only ones to do so. Brynjolf is particularly unusual since other Nords speak with a Scandinavian accent or none at all. Delvin can be at least somewhat justified by the fact that he's a Breton, and their home province of High Rock is the most straightforward example of a Britain expy the setting has (with a little French thrown in for good measure). What makes him stand out is that he is literally the only NPC in the game with that accent, making it seem very unusual. However, according to his backstory in the official guide, Delvin grew up as an orphan in Riften and his his brother in Solstheim doesn't have the accent. There ''are'' possible explanations for Brynjolf, but it still makes it odd that he's the only one to use it -- he's either speaking in an archaic dialect (back in the ''Morrowind'' days, the Nords sounded Scottish), or a Morrowind-settlement dialect (the Nords in ''Morrowind'' sounded Scottish). |
| 234 | * In ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', Sulik has a Caribbean accent, despite being from post-apocalyptic Northern California/Southern Oregon. Every other voiced character has an accent that's appropriate for the region. |
| 235 | * ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': |
| 236 | ** Moriarty and Tenpenny, who have Irish and British accents respectively while everyone else in the game speaks with an American accent. This makes no sense in a post-apocalypse world where the ability to cross the Atlantic ocean was lost centuries ago, assuming that the British Isles are even still inhabited. WordOfGod is that Tenpenny at least was supposed to hint at a post-War UK. Desmond Lockhart in ''Point Lookout'' is also referred to as a "limey". Moriarty, on the other hand doesn't have a real Irish accent, instead using the stereotypical [[{{Oireland}} Oirish]] accent [[spoiler:and is implied to be faking it.]] |
| 237 | ** Similarly, there's Dukov, who speaks with a thick Russian accent. |
| 238 | ** Even among the American accents, Moira Brown has a Midwestern accent that sticks out in the Maryland/DC area. |
| 239 | ** Colonel Autumn speaks with a thick Southern accent despite the fact that he was born and raised in an [[VideoGame/Fallout2 oil rig off the coast of California]]. |
| 240 | * ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': |
| 241 | ** Cait (voiced by [[{{Scotireland}} Scottish-born]] Katy Townsend) speaks with a thick Irish accent while the Bobrov brothers in Diamond City have thick Russian accents. Proctor Quinlan of the Brotherhood of Steel has a stuffy British accent while Dr. Carrington and Dr. Amari have Indian accents. |
| 242 | ** This continues into the DLC: the elder Nakanos both have Japanese accents, while ''Nuka-World'' adds in Overboss Colter, a Cockney-accented Raider. |
| 243 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': Melissa Lewis, daughter of Chomps Lewis of Sloan, has an unexplained New Zealander accent which ''nobody'' else has, including her father. This isn't even a case of her voice actress NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent as Zoë Bell plays "Female Adult 06" and three other named characters, all of whom speak with American accents. Melissa is the only one to use Bell's native New Zealand accent. |
| 244 | * ''VideoGame/FarCryPrimal'' gives us Urki. Who has a thick, hillbilly accent despite being a Neolithic caveman residing in what will become Europe. |
| 245 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 246 | ** Cyan of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' speaks in YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe in the SNES translation, and a less "butcherede" version thereof in the GBA translation. No one else in his home country, family, or the rest of the game speaks like that. |
| 247 | ** ''Compilation of VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': |
| 248 | *** In the original game, Cloud would occasionally use folksy Southern-US dialect words when startled or not paying attention, which is a believable detail for a country boy with self-image issues. What doesn't make sense is how Tifa, who comes from the same place as him, never shows any trace of an accent at all. The Compilation averts this with Steve Burton's voicing of Cloud. |
| 249 | *** Cait Sith was written in text in the original game as having an accent (Kansai dialect in the original Japanese), with the conceit that it was the alter ego of his animator/alter ego Reeve, who usually disguised it. One scene focuses on him getting rumbled by the Shinra [[OohMeAccentsSlipping due to suddenly talking in Cait Sith's accent]], although where he came from originally to pick the accent up was never explained. The original game [[{{Woolseyism}} Woolseyfied]] it into a Southern accent, but in ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'' and ''VideoGame/DirgeOfCerberus'' he has a Scottish accent -- a literal MythologyGag considering that "Cait Sith" is a Scottish fairy. |
| 250 | *** The Compilation seems to be good about those. In ''VideoGame/DirgeOfCerberus'', Rosso the Crimson has a random Russian accent (despite the fact she was born and raised underground). Nero the Sable has a British accent, despite being born with the same circumstances as Rosso. |
| 251 | *** Cid gets a Texan accent, which was also hinted at in the game. Though just going by the text, an East London accent is equally applicable. |
| 252 | ** Over in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', Wakka's thick pseudo-Jamaican accent would make sense as a Besaid accent…''if'' anyone else from said island had the same accent. Which they don't. The closest they get is random villagers without recorded voices copying Wakka's VerbalTic. |
| 253 | ** Subverted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII''. Vanille and Fang's Australian accent may seem out of place [[spoiler:until it's revealed they come from Pulse, which is "down under" Cocoon"]] |
| 254 | ** Ignis from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' speaks in a stately, received-pronunciation English accent, despite everyone else in the Kingdom of Lucis sounding American. An egregious example, considering that RP-English is the default accent of the much-despised Niflheim Empire, who Lucis have been at war with for decades. |
| 255 | * Alice Gray, Anna's young daughter in later installments of the ''VideoGame/GrimTales'' series of {{hidden object game}}s, has a strange British accent reminiscent of WesternAnimation/PeppaPig. Neither Anna nor her husband Dorian speak with such an accent -- nor does the teenage Alice, in her debut appearance in ''Guest From the Future'' -- so it's unclear why the child version of the character does. |
| 256 | * Most of the cast of ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' have [[TheQueensLatin British accents]] in a game set in Ancient Greece. [[TrainingDummy Skelly]], however, has a voice like a slick used car salesman. |
| 257 | * ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'': Although taking place in America, several characters have French accents that are never explained. Lauren might be a French immigrant, but the Mars and Sheppard kids are American-born to American parents and have no excuse. Unsurprisingly, the game was made by a French developer. |
| 258 | * Parodied in ''VideoGame/JaysJourney'', where one NPC gives hints to a minigame in hard-to-decipher cockney, and Jay wonders where she could have picked the accent up. |
| 259 | * In ''VideoGame/TheJourneymanProject'' the PA voice at the Temporal Security Annex inexplicably has an Afro-British accent, and [[BigBad Dr. Elliott Sinclair]] has an American accent despite hailing from Sydney, Australia[[spoiler:or rather, from Atlantis, but that only makes his accent stranger]]. The accent of the Morimoto Mars Colony PA is at least justified by it being a Japanese corporation. |
| 260 | * ''VideoGame/KanColle'': Ryuujou speaks with a Kansai dialect despite her being "born" in Yokohama. |
| 261 | * ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'': |
| 262 | ** Fiora is, so far, the only champion in the entire world of Runeterra with a French accent. ''VideoGame/LegendsOfRuneterra'' gives it a little more explanation by introducing a "[[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Laurent_Duelist_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Laurent Duelist]]" follower who similarly shares it... then it got wackier with the "[[https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Burgeoning_Sentinel_(Legends_of_Runeterra) Burgeoning Sentinel]]" explicitly from Demacia and implicitly tied to the Laurent house, who has an ''Irish'' accent. |
| 263 | ** Viktor is the only person with a [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent Vaguely German/Russian/Eastern European]] one. |
| 264 | ** Caitlyn's high-class English accent is utterly unlike those of other Piltover natives, who speak with various American accents. They eventually resolved this one with Camille, however, who is also apparently English, cementing it as the accent for Piltover's upper class. |
| 265 | ** Tahm Kench has a ''very'' noticeable Cajun accent, and is the only character in the entire game to feature such an accent. Even his being a demon doesn't explain it, as none of the other demon champions feature one. |
| 266 | ** Braum has a very distinct Russian accent as per his HuskyRusskie archetype, but isn't prevalent in any other [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Freljordian]] characters. |
| 267 | ** Aatrox's post-update voiceover also gives him an incredibly thick and booming Russian accent, despite having no relation to the Freljord. It can't even be attributed to him being a Darkin, as neither of the other two Darkin champions have it at all. |
| 268 | ** Pantheon has a Greek accent, which makes sense given his entire character is heavily influenced by [[UsefulNotes/AncientGreece Spartans]], but also doesn't make sense as nobody else in the game has it, including others from the same region in Mount Targon. |
| 269 | ** Lillia is a fae-like deer spirit who speaks with a Scottish accent. Pretty standard as far as this game goes, but it gets even sillier considering that Lillia hails from [[{{Wutai}} Ionia, a region inspired by east Asia]]. |
| 270 | ** Gwen has a transatlantic accent (a mix of American and British English), which is also normal on its own, but is weird primarily due to her originating from Camavor, a long-forgotten kingdom inspired by conquistador-era Spain (Viego, its last ruling king, speaks with a European Spanish accent). Gwen might not have inherited the accent due to her originally being [[HumanityEnsues a doll that was recently given human form by soul magic]], [[VoodooShark but that just raises additional questions.]] |
| 271 | * Most ''[[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Legend of Zelda]]'' games take place in the fictional country of Hyrule, which is based heavily on Europe (especially Greece). ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' is the first ''Zelda'' title to feature a large amount of voice acting (previous games featured single words, [[NonDubbedGrunts often in Japanese]], or in the case of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker Wind Waker]]'' the segment was just left out of translated versions). The accents seem to be a mixed bag. Many characters seem to speak with American accents despite the European MedievalStasis aesthetic. Princess Zelda, on the other hand, ''does'' have a British accent. Two stranger examples would be Zelda's father King Rhoam and the Great Deku Tree, who both speak with what can be considered 75% American, 25% British accents. |
| 272 | * Pip in ''VideoGame/LuminousArc2'' has a sort of British accent for some unknown reason. No one else in the game does, including his twin sister Pop. Moose has a German accent, but he supposedly studied at a foreign university, so that may explain the accent. |
| 273 | * Kaguya in the English version of ''VideoGame/MarySkelterNightmares'' has a vaguely British accent while every other character, playable and [=NPC=] alike, has an American accent. What makes it interesting is that the game takes place in Japan, albeit underground for about 20 years, and her real-life inspiration ("The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter") is the only Japanese fairy tale represented in the game. If anything, it would make more sense for her fellow FairyTale-inspired Blood Maidens to have different accents from everyone else. |
| 274 | * Javik of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' has a Nigerian accent, although the other [[spoiler:Protheans we see in flashbacks]] have American accents. Possibly justified as the others are being translated but he's actually speaking English. Noticeably, the Prothean VI you meet in the latter half of the game speaks with the same accent as Javik. |
| 275 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'': The series has quite a few instances of this. |
| 276 | ** Raiden was born and raised in the African country of Liberia, but has an American accent. Though in all fairness, he looks nothing like a Liberian either. |
| 277 | ** Colonel Volgin from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' has an American accent despite being Russian. The same applies to the enemies and scientists. |
| 278 | ** Hot Coldman from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' is listed as an American, yet has an accent. It doesn't even sound like something from any discernable region, just some hammy 1930s cartoon kind of accent. |
| 279 | * ''VideoGame/MutantYearZeroRoadToEden'' is set in post-apocalyptic Sweden, and everyone is voiced with American accents ... except for Farrow, who speaks like a working-class Londoner. From what we learn about her, she is from the same region as everyone else. |
| 280 | * ''VideoGame/NamuAmidaButsuUtena'': Kokūzō speaks in Tosa accent and Nikkō in Kansai dialect without clear reasons why; in the case of the latter, it's more likely for characterization reasons as a comedy enthusiast, especially in {{manzai}}, rather than regional. |
| 281 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonSuperMysteryDungeon'': Mr. Nuzleaf's dialogue is written in a Southern American dialect, while Hippopotas' dialogue is written in a German accent. There's no in-universe explanation given for this, especially since no other character is written with any kind of accent. |
| 282 | ** Two [=NPCs=] on the roof of Mauville City in ''VideoGame/PokemonOmegaRubyAndAlphaSapphire'' have Scottish accents despite Mauville being based on Kumamoto in Japan. The most likely explanation is that this is an AccentAdaptation, because when Pokémon introduced an area actually based on Scotland, the Crown Tundra in the [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Galar region]], not one character there had a Scottish accent. |
| 283 | * In ''VideoGame/Portal2'', Wheatley has a [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents West Country]] accent and Rick the Adventure Sphere has an Australian accent, despite them both being {{Artificial Intelligence}}s made by the American company Aperture Science. |
| 284 | * The Merchant in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' has a Piratish/Cornish accent for some reason. The entire game takes place in an unspecified and unnamed rural region of Spain. |
| 285 | * Claudia in ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'' is an American character voiced by an Australian voice actress, Creator/DonnaBurke. For whatever reason, she has a [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents British accent]], even in the HD redub, where she is voiced by Creator/LauraBailey. |
| 286 | * In ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', there's a scene where Eggman sees a news broadcast of Shadow stealing a Chaos Emerald and being mistaken for Sonic. The newscaster, for whatever reason, has a thick English accent, despite the fact that the city the game is set in is a pretty blatant {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco. Further, the actress clearly [[FakeBrit isn't actually English]], and [[OohMeAccentsSlipping putting on the accent is making her delivery extremely awkward.]] Why the actress simply couldn't use her natural voice remains a mystery. |
| 287 | * In the talkie version of ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestIV'', the Big And Tall sales clerk inexplicably has a French accent. |
| 288 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': |
| 289 | ** Every Republic character has an American accent and every Imperial character save for Mandalorians has a British accent. What makes this odd is that the British accent in-universe is very explicitly Coruscanti, i.e. the accent of the Republic's capital world. It is the only work in the entire Franchise/StarWars universe to do this and no explanation is given for the switch. While it's likely to make the Sith Empire seem like the Empire of the Original Trilogy, this still doesn't make sense because Palpatine's Empire was based on Coruscant and was the Republic before he took over. The Sith Empire has a totally different geographic origin. |
| 290 | ** Imperial Agent companion Ensign Temple seems to be the only Imperial with an Australian accent. |
| 291 | * In the Japanese version of ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' Hakan speaks in an Osakan accent despite being from Turkey. |
| 292 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 293 | ** Mario and Luigi have strong pseudo-Italian accents, despite ([[MultipleChoicePast maybe]]) growing up in the Mushroom Kingdom, though, there's nothing that says there isn't an Italy-equivalent there. Originally, the Mario Bros. were both going to speak with gruff Brooklyn accents, but they were immediately changed into Italian accents after Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto found them too terrifying to children. |
| 294 | ** At the end of the final level of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'', when [[OverlordJr Bowser Jr.]] shows Mario/Luigi the captive Peach being tied to the mast of his spaceship just right before the final boss battle against [[BigBad Bowser,]] Peach, for some reason, has a Japanese accent. She has it again at the end of ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'', this time after Mario sees Bowser tie her to a flagpole. |
| 295 | * Ness in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' uses a Japanese voice actress with a noticeable accent in every game. In ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'' Ness is from an America stand-in. Lucas, however, averts this, which is ironic since Ness's game was released internationally while [[VideoGame/Mother3 Lucas's]] remains an infamous case of NoExportForYou. |
| 296 | * Played with in ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'', where the Marquis De Singe is offended at the implication that he's French. Even though he's got the accent... and the outfit ...and the name... And he ''always'' looks when you point out [[KingBobTheNth King Louis XVI]] (Or XV, or XIV, or XIII...) |
| 297 | * In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', exactly three characters have accents distinct from the rest of the cast, all very vaguely British. In the case of Botta and Origin, it's probably the actor -- Creator/RobinAtkinDownes was born in the United Kingdom. Kvar doesn't have that excuse, and appears to be a case of [[InvokedTrope invoked]] EvilBrit. |
| 298 | * Though it's hard to tell as he's not actually voiced except with VoiceGrunting, [[InexplicablyAwesome Sans]] from ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' speaks in a FunetikAksent which many fans peg down as New Yorkian. Odd given he's a skeleton who has [[spoiler:at least supposedly]] spent all his life underground among monsters who don't have readable accents at all; ''not even his own brother has one''. |
| 299 | * In the English Platform/PS2 version of ''VideoGame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'', Olha, voiced by Torontan actress Creator/KathleenBarr, has a quasi-Irish accent; while her uncle Chief Ord, voiced by Creator/BrianDobson, a native Londoner, has a Creator/JamesEarlJones-esque Mid-Atlantic accent; most of the other Rehda and the genetal cast have generic American accents (even BigBad Ernst, who one would expect to be an EvilBrit, also being voiced by Brian Dobson); Eresian castaway Xaxon (Creator/TerryKlassen from Winnipeg, Manitoba) talks like he's from the DeepSouth; and [[TheDragon Admiral Agares]](Creator/TrevorDevall) has a thick Germanic accent(e.g. [[VampireVords pronouncing "w" as "v"]] and uvular TrillingRs) despite being from the game world's equivalent of Spain. |
| 300 | [[/folder]] |
| 301 | |
| 302 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 303 | * ''WebAnimation/BurgerBrawl'': Tippers's Spanish accent contrasts with her son Logi's as well as the rest of the cast's American accents. Later episodes introduced Tippers' dads who turn out to not have the same accent as their daughter, making hers all the more unexplained. |
| 304 | * ''WebAnimation/ADayWithBowserJr'': Fawful has a completely random and unexplained Jamaican accent. |
| 305 | * Strong Bad from ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' has a Hispanic accent, though it's been [[VocalEvolution toned down over the years]]. While it fits with the luchador mask that constitutes as his face, neither of his brothers speak with the same accent and there's no InUniverse explanation for why he has it. |
| 306 | * ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'' has Magnus's Australian accent, Leman Russ's Scottish accent (both of these were done due to their [=VA=]s inability to do the right accent), Vulkan's Jamaican [[spoiler:and Ork Cockney]] accent, and Little Kitten's British accent. Vulkan is worse (and funnier) because he never had it until a certain point. |
| 307 | * In the briefcase sketch in ''WebAnimation/TheLazerCollection'' 5, the mother, father and son all have American accents, but the daughter has a British one. Given the series' RapidFireComedy setup, it would be unrealistic to hope for an explanation. |
| 308 | -->Oh boy, I've always wondered what's in Dad's briefcase [[LampshadeHanging why am I British]]? |
| 309 | * ''WebAnimation/MurderDrones'': J, N, and V all speak American English, despite later episodes revealing that prior to becoming assembly drones, they were owned by and had most of their interactions with a wealthy Australian family. Could be justified by them being robots who were manufactured by JC Jenson, a parody of the real-life American company SC Johnson. |
| 310 | * ''WebAnimation/TheOatsSeries'': Older Pig is the only character with an American accent in a series where almost everyone speaks with British Accents. |
| 311 | * ''WebAnimation/ObjectTerror'': Trowel, Paint and Road Sign have Romanian, Egyptian and Filipino accents respectively whereas everyone else has American accents. It becomes a double example with Road Sign inexplicably switching to British. |
| 312 | * ''WebAnimation/PrincessNatasha'': Natasha has an American accent and talks like an American teenager, despite being from a European country. Her dad has a British-sounding accent, and Oleg and Lubek have vaguely Russian accents. |
| 313 | * ObjectShows have a high tendency of [[TheOtherDarrin switching out voice actors]] between episodes, leading to characters suddenly gaining accents they never had or losing them entirely. This is usually due to people using their natural accents which vary across the OSC's worldwide fanbase and the limited availability of such voice actors resulting in object shows using whoever's free at the moment regardless of whether they sound remotely similar to the previous one or not. |
| 314 | ** A noteworthy example would be Creator/JacobFairclough, a rather-famous OSC voice actor who starred in multiple object shows, as no matter what character he voiced, it would always be British and be out of place in a usually predominant American cast. |
| 315 | [[/folder]] |
| 316 | |
| 317 | [[folder:Web Video]] |
| 318 | * InUniverse in ''WebVideo/AHeistWithMarkiplier''. Yancy speaks with a strong Bronx accent but mentions that he's from Ohio and his father was always judging him for his accent. |
| 319 | * ''WebVideo/PokemonTalk'': In-universe example with Bulbasaur questioning why Squirtle had a British accent, in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePA4X-FQNl8&list=PLAF4vERAnCkNhdM1Wf_CvW8xBFuS3Q9hB&index=1 the first episode]], and subsequently for the rest of the series, due to never talking like that before. |
| 320 | [[/folder]] |
| 321 | |
| 322 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 323 | * ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': |
| 324 | ** Everyone has a standard "newscaster" American accent (and usually not a "cartoony" take on one, either) except Tree Trunks (Southern) and Flambo (New Yorker). No in-universe explanation is given for either. |
| 325 | ** [[OneShotCharacter Goliad]] also has an English accent, despite being both raised by and based off of the DNA of one of the aforementioned newscaster-voiced characters. |
| 326 | ** Minerva Campbell is voiced by Creator/SharonHorgan, and keeps her Irish accent. Nobody else in the series has one. |
| 327 | * On ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', CIA Director Bullock has a British accent, which isn't addressed. It's rare for a high-ranking official in the federal government to be a U.S. immigrant, but it's not unheard of. The last immigrant Director of Central Intelligence was only in 1996: the Belgian-born John Deutch. |
| 328 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': |
| 329 | ** Wakko has a Liverpudlian accent even though his brother and sister both have American accents. His voice is actually Jess Harnell's impression of Ringo Starr. |
| 330 | ** Pinky of ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' speaks with a cockney accent, which is why one of his lesser-used {{Verbal Tic}}s is "zounds", even though he's a genetically-altered mouse from a lab in California. In one episode, Brain finds and modifies Pinky's parents, who also speak with cockney accents. {{Lampshaded}} by "Dr. Brainenstein" in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/Animaniacs2020''. |
| 331 | --> '''Dr. Brainenstein:''' Have you seen my laboratory assistant, Pigor? Skinny, white, buck teeth, inexplicable cockney accent? |
| 332 | * ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'': |
| 333 | ** Meatwad speaks with a small but noticeable Southern accent, despite the series taking place in the state of New Jersey. |
| 334 | ** Oglethorpe is a space alien, yet speaks with a distinct German accent. |
| 335 | * Veronica from ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' is portrayed with a Southern accent in a lot of older media, such as [[Radio/TheAdventuresOfArchieAndrews the radio show]] and especially ''WesternAnimation/TheArchieShow'' affiliated cartoons. Veronica is from the North-East. |
| 336 | * Iroh from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has a Japanese accent, despite the rest of his family having American accents. |
| 337 | * Good luck trying to nail down Music/GeorgeHarrison's accent in the 60's cartoon ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles''. It [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent definitely isn't Liverpudlian]]. [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent Whatever it is, it's sure as heck not British]]. One cartoon even said he was ''Transylvanian''! |
| 338 | * Marty and Betty Storkowitz from ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdz}}'' both have British accents, which is odd given their kids have American accents. |
| 339 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheBrakShow'': Dad speaks with a Cuban accent for some unexplained reason. Mom initially didn't have an accent, but spoke with one of British descent starting in the second season. |
| 340 | * Gordon on ''WesternAnimation/{{Catscratch}}'' has a Scottish accent, despite both of his brothers having "ordinary" American accents. |
| 341 | * Snap from ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'' has a notable Bronx accent, but no one else in [=ChalkZone=] does. Presumably, that's just how Rudy heard his voice in his head when he drew the character. |
| 342 | * ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'': Chicken has a thick Brooklyn accent, but his parents and sister don't. |
| 343 | * ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'': |
| 344 | ** The alien episode "Multiplication Fable" has a thick Welsh accent. As he meets our heroes in the Birmingham region: |
| 345 | -->'''Penfold:''' Um, DM...that's not how they talk in Birmingham, do they?\ |
| 346 | '''DM:''' Good heavens, no, Penfold. He's from another planet. |
| 347 | ** Quark, the alien trying to claim Earth through a cosmic charter, has a Scottish accent that the narrator calls "a strange alien tongue." |
| 348 | * Dexter of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' has a thick stereotypically Eastern European accent because of the [[HerrDoktor connotations of Russians and German scientists]], even though none of his family members do. And Dexter's mother is the only member of the family with a Minnesota accent. |
| 349 | * ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': |
| 350 | ** Webby speaks with a regular American accent, despite the fact that she was raised by her British granny in a Scottish trillionaire's mansion and, by her own admission, "didn't hear an American accent until [she] was, like, seven." |
| 351 | ** Lena likewise lacks any trace of her aunt's British accent, despite being [[spoiler:Magica's shadow brought to life, rather than an actual relative, meaning she didn't even learn to speak; she simply popped into existence with the wrong accent.]] |
| 352 | * The titular characters in ''WesternAnimation/ErkyPerky'' have Scottish accents, despite the series presumably taking place in Canada or Australia (as it's a co-production between the two countries). |
| 353 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 354 | ** Stewie has a British accent despite his parents both being American. Parodied in Viewer Mail #2 with the British version of the Griffins. British Stewie has a Southern accent. |
| 355 | ** In "He's Too Sexy for His Fat," a CutawayGag shows that Brian's Chinese acupuncturist has an inexplicably thick Irish accent. Even the cast and crew in the official commentary don't have an explanation and want to know what his story is. |
| 356 | ** For some reason, Lois has a strong {{Joisey}} accent, but her father and sister do not. |
| 357 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantaghiro}}'': It’s fairly common for comedic characters, especially nonhuman ones, to have accents that they have no business having. The worst offender in this regard is probably the [[TalkingWeapon talking arrow]] from “The Weapons Of Peace”, which sounds like it’s from New York. |
| 358 | * In the second season of ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourTheAnimatedSeries'' (as well as a guest spot in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk1996''), Simon Templeman voiced ComicBook/DoctorDoom with an English accent, despite the character hailing from the fictional Central European nation of Laveria. ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'', ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'' and the first season of the aforementioned ''Fantastic Four'' are the only cartoons where Doom actually sounds Germanic; most other shows tend to give him a generic American accent. |
| 359 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'': The brave Safety Patrol of X Middle School have solved many mysteries, but somehow never got around to investigating the inexplicably substantial number of students sporting vaguely British accents. The accent of AmbiguouslyBrown librarian Mr. Lender at least makes a kind of sense, assuming he was raised in England before moving to America, but the number of pseudo-English students is remarkably high for an American (Minnesotan, according to Word of God) school. |
| 360 | * The British cartoon ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxbusters'' is about three hen sisters -- Ransome (Creator/WhoopiGoldberg), Sims (Creator/JoannaLumley) and Jeffries (Jane Horrocks). They all have different accents. Ransome's American accent is lampshaded at least once. |
| 361 | * Amy on ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has a ValleyGirl accent, despite being from Mars and living in New New York. Her parents have heavy Chinese accents, despite being multi-generational Martians, though this is theoretically [[JustifiedTrope justified]] since they're at least ethnically Chinese. Amy also speaks Chinese on occasion, making it even more ambiguous what the status of Chinese is in that family[=/=]Martian life. |
| 362 | * Li'l Gideon from ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' speaks and acts like a stereotypical Southerner, [[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/f/fd/S2e8_robbie_squirt.png/revision/latest?cb=20141117170325 despite being]] [[http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/8/8a/S2e8_big_wheels.png/revision/latest?cb=20141117170326 born in Oregon]]. |
| 363 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy,'' TheGrimReaper has a Jamaican accent of all things. It vaguely has to do with HollywoodVoodoo as his auntie (voiced by Dawnn Lewis) also has dreads and cooks around a cauldron, but goes right back into unexplained territory with his dad speaking with a general American accent (voiced by Creator/KurtwoodSmith) and being more or less a cowboy. Grim's mother is a stereotypical Jewish mother, with an appropriate accent. Even stranger, even though neither of Grim's parents have the Jamaican accent, his grandmother does. It's likely a reference to Geoffrey Holder's character Baron Samedi in the ''Film/JamesBond'' movie ''Film/LiveAndLetDie'', who wore skull-faced make-up and had the same accent. Incidentally, Grim's voice actor, Greg Eagles, intended the character to have a ''Swedish'' accent (in reference to ''Film/TheSeventhSeal''), [[ThrowItIn but it ended up coming out as Jamaican]]. |
| 364 | * Some of the Heroes of ''Toys/HeroFactory'', who are robots constructed on an alien robot planet, have these, most notably Stringer speaks with a southern accent. Surge is a stranger case, as [[TheOtherDarrin with the change of his voice actor]] he suddenly and inexplicably adopted a strong Australian accent. |
| 365 | * Several characters on ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' have New York and Eastern U.S. accents, despite WordOfGod stating the show takes place in Washington. |
| 366 | * In ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies'', Ken Addleburg and his son Junior both speak with a ridiculously comical, and completely unexplained accent. Ken's voice actor, Brendon Small, re-used the accent for Victor (who is an immigrant from Cuba) on the ''Podcast/ComedyBangBang'' podcast. |
| 367 | * On ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim,'' [[EnsembleDarkhorse Tak]] has a British accent while none of the other Irkens do. [[LaResistance Lard Nar]] has one as well, though we only have one other Vort to compare him with. |
| 368 | * ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'': Despite the fact 90% of the cast is monsters and the show takes place in a cartoon analogue of Hell, Molotov and his unnamed wife have a Russian accent (a reference to their HuskyRusskie appearances and Vyacheslav Molotov), while Rudolpho and his son Peep have Cockney accents (based on their occupation as swindlers and the stereotype of Cockneys as criminals). |
| 369 | * Olaf from ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'' has a Russian accent despite being from Planet Smileyland's equivalent of Antarctica. |
| 370 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard:'' |
| 371 | ** Jasiri and Madoa have Australian accents. There is another hyena unrelated to them that has the same accent, but none of the other hyenas in the series have it. Odd. |
| 372 | ** Apparently, all ''African'' vultures have ''British'' accents, or at least Liverpudlian ones.. |
| 373 | ** King Sokwe and his sons all speak with British accents. However, fellow gorilla Shujaa engages in HulkSpeak, with an American accent. |
| 374 | ** "Ono and the Egg" has a red rock hare with a Swedish accent, but another hare in the same group has an American accent. |
| 375 | * ''WesternAnimation/MikeLuAndOg'': The adults on the island have British accents, which is justified since their ancestors came from England. That still doesn't explain why Lu and Og have American accents. |
| 376 | * Rainbow Dash in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyG3'' had a British accent until the "Core 7" retool. No one else has a non-American accent besides Spike. |
| 377 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': |
| 378 | ** Rarity has a Trans-Atlantic accent but didn't have one as a filly, and no one in her family has anything resembling it. Though TruthInTelevision, as Rarity's accent is a cultivated one that you cannot have it naturally, so it'd make sense for the character to adopt it as she wanted to seem fancier and more cultured. Neither her parents (who are ''extremely'' less cultured than she is) nor her younger sister share it. Lending more credence to the idea that she adopts the accent for fashion effect, she was able to easily adopt a country dialect when trying to be more like Applejack. She also tends to on-and-off drop British terminologies into her speech ("tea and biscuits"). |
| 379 | ** There is also the Apple Family. They all have a variety of country accents, which wouldn't be strange for a family of farmers, except that they're native to Ponyville (as in the family goes back to its ''founding''), and no one else in Ponyville uses those accents. This is because Ponyville was only founded three generations ago, and everypony has accents from wherever they or their family moved from. It doesn't explain why every member of the Apple family sounds like they're from a different state, though; Applejack sounds like she's from Tennessee, her little sister sounds like she's from Georgia, and their grandmother sounds like she's from Pennsylvania. |
| 380 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheOctonauts'' could initially be justified in the crew, themselves being a MultinationalTeam and defaulting to British accents, ''but'' all other animals are just random or RuleOfFunny in the case of [[SurferDude Lemmy the lemon shark,]] the French-accented [[TheNoseKnows remipedes]] or the Ricardo Montalban-sounding dwarf lantern shark. |
| 381 | * In ''WesternAnimation/{{Popples}}'', four out of the six Sports Popples speak in different accents. Big Kick speaks with a British accent, Cuester talks with a Brooklyn accent, Dunker talks with a stereotypical African-American accent, and Pitcher talks with a Southern accent. |
| 382 | * ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': |
| 383 | ** Angella's British accent isn't shared with any other character, not even her daughter. |
| 384 | ** Dana Davis's characters, MauveShirt Lonnie and one of the three serving staff in Dryl, have a faint accent that even other people from the same areas don't have. |
| 385 | ** There are many questions surrounding Madam Razz that the show never even attempts to answer. While the reason she sounds vaguely Eastern European, unlike basically everyone else on Etheria, certainly isn't a ''major'' question to leave hanging, especially compared to the whole rest of the character's deal, it's still weird. Characters who come from ''other planets'' have less unique accents. |
| 386 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 387 | ** Moe Szyzlak has Russian ancestry and a pseudo-Slavic name, yet has a heavy New York accent [[BrooklynRage to make him sound harsher]], and in one flashback he speaks with an Italian accent. He's also from Indiana. Another episode jokes that he's Dutch -- even walking on clogs to prove it. Judging by the name Szyzlak, he could be from the Gary area/Chicago area, though he sounds as if he's from the Bronx. Anyway, in the episode "Much Apu About Nothing" he's revealed to be an illegal immigrant himself. |
| 388 | ** Cletus and his family all have Southern accents to make them seem more hickish, but there's never any implication they actually come from the South. |
| 389 | * In ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'', Antoine Depardieu has a French name and accent despite everyone else around him having some sort of American accent. This is unexplained, except for a throw-away line that he had training in the "Delmont Province". The accent seems to be mostly there to have him fit the stereotype of a CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkey (er, coyote). |
| 390 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'' have a variety of accents, despite them all having grown up at the same time in the same village. Most notable is Painter's outrageous French accent, but there are several others, such as Clumsy's Southern drawl and Sweeper's extremely fake-sounding Cockney accent. In [[Film/TheSmurfs the 2011 movie,]] new character Gutsy follows tradition by being a BraveScot. |
| 391 | ** The Latino dub did the same, retaining Painter's French accent and changing the English accents for different Mexican local accents most notably Farmer's Yucatecan accent (Yucatan is a farming region), Greedy's Northern Mexican accent (a region well known for its cuisine) and Taylor's "Jarocho" (Veracruzan) accent. Most Smurfs speak in Neutral Spanish though. |
| 392 | ** Painter's French accent is particularly egregious considering that the Smurfs live in Belgium and thus they all speak French, unless they are from the Flemish speaking part but as Peyo himself was a French-speaking Belgian this is unlikely and even if they were is still unexplained why would Painter had learn a different native tongue than the rest. |
| 393 | * In the ''ComicStrip/SnuffySmith'' animated series Snuffy's niece Bizzy Buzz Buzz speaks in a Scandinavian or Swedish accent, the rest of her family including her mother speak in Southern accents. |
| 394 | * ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': |
| 395 | ** Butters has a Southern accent ([[TokenWholesome to make him seem more "wholesome"]]), though neither of his parents share it. During his cross-dressing escapade, he's introduced as a girl from Texas. |
| 396 | ** Since Cartman cosplayed as Robert E. Lee and a hick sheriff, he occasionally pronounces some words with a vaguely Southern, non-rhotic accent, such as saying "authority" as "authori-tah" and "here" and "hyah." |
| 397 | ** Kenny lacks a Southern accent unlike the rest of his family in place of a Midwestern accent. |
| 398 | ** All the authority figures at South Park Elementary have strong, non-Colorado accents. Mr. Mackey and Mr. Garrison have southern accents, Principal Victoria has a Minnesota one. Garrison's is eventually explained when we meet his mother, who is also southern. |
| 399 | ** When the boys are looking for a replacement for Kenny, we finally hear the voice of Dogpoo, who up until that point had been a voiceless LivingProp. For whatever reason, he has an upper-crust/British accent. |
| 400 | * The French dub of ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' bordered on GagDub. Batman's accent was least explicable, but the Bizarro episode had one guy with a just-got-off-the-boat North African accent and another from Belgium. |
| 401 | * The ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' in every incarnation have totally different accents. They were raised in the sewers of New York by a Japanese man (or, depending on the continuity, his pet rat), but while Raph does have the Brooklyn accent to match the New York setting, Mikey sounds like he's from southern California, and Leo and Don sound like they're from the Midwest or otherwise speak neutral American English. Considering they lived in isolation until age 15, they probably learned how to speak from imitating the TV rather than Splinter. They all tend to use TotallyRadical [[SurferDude surfer slang]] when they're excited, though WordOfGod states this was due to ExecutiveMeddling. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen They were going to speak]] in [[TotallyRadical hip]] [[JiveTurkey urban dialect instead.]] |
| 402 | * The Mexican dub of ''WesternAnimation/TopCat'' became famous due to the use of different Mexican accents for each of the cats. Probably one of the reasons behind [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff its broad popularity in Latin America]]. |
| 403 | * [[ButtMonkey Ezekiel]] on ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' has a typical Canadian accent, even though the whole cast is Canadian and no one else has it, making him sound like a country bumpkin. Then again, that was probably the point... |
| 404 | * In pretty much every incarnation of ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'', many Cybertronians have American accents. There is never really a reason given for that, nor why they still seem to speak English even when on Cybertron. So, [[AwesomeAussie Outback]] must come from the Australian part of Cybertron. |
| 405 | ** Ravage spoke only a line or two in ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', but his voice was pretty much just generally American. When he returned in ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', he had been rebuilt with the ability to consistently speak... with an inexplicable Russian accent. |
| 406 | ** In ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'', Jetfire has an Australian accent despite being voiced by Canadian Creator/BrianDrummond. Ironically, the VA who voiced him with an American accent in the [[Anime/TransformersArmada prior]] [[Anime/TransformersEnergon two]] series, Creator/ScottMcNeil, is a native Australian. (One bit of supplementary material claims he picked it up from a vacation to the planet Nebulos, suggesting that (in that continuity, anyway) Nebulans have Aussie accents. |
| 407 | * All over the place among the UniversalAdaptorCast of ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales''. The most likely explanation is that [[ActingForTwo Phil Vischer plays 50% of the characters and Mike Nawrocki another 40%]], so they often need to resort to accents to keep the characters distinct. Some characters, such as the StuffyBrit Archibald Asparagus and the very French Madame Blueberry, at least have cultural motifs and stereotypical mannerisms to go with their accents, but many other characters don't: |
| 408 | ** The most obvious example is Mr. Lunt, who has a very heavy Latino accent. Absolutely nothing in the series' two-decade history has indicated that the character has a Latino background, not even his name. Famously, he once claimed to have grown up in [[{{Joisey}} New Jersey]]. |
| 409 | ** Pa Grape speaks in a Yiddish accent, despite having debuted as the patriarch of a clan of Appalachian hillbillies. The incongruity became less obvious after the rest of his family suffered ChuckCunninghamSyndrome; Pa plays a lot of Old Testament roles, but then so do all the other characters. His occasional use of YiddishAsASecondLanguage coupled with the disappearance of his Southern relatives keeps him from falling too far into the trope, though whether Pa agrees with the series' explicitly-Christian values is another question... |
| 410 | ** Scooter has a Scottish accent. In his first appearance he was a parody of [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Lt. Montgomery Scott]], making his accent in all subsequent appearances TheArtifact. Like Mr. Lunt, there's nothing particularly Scottish about him -- except in the Silly Song "Kilts and Stilts", where he gets angry when the song switches from Scotland to other cultures; and he gets especially upset when [[ParentalBonus the style switches to English.]] |
| 411 | ** It happens occasionally with some other characters. Mr. Nezzer usually plays FatSweatySouthernerInAWhiteSuit roles, and the French Peas originally made their living playing Biblical villains [[ShoutOut in the style of]] Creator/MontyPython's [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail French taunters]], but when they play other sorts of roles their Texan and French accents come across as a bit inexplicable. |
| 412 | [[/folder]] |
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